WASHINGTON – Turkey will continue to uphold United Nations sanctions against Iran but will ignore increased unilateral sanctions imposed recently by the United States and the European Union that target Tehran’s oil exports and its central bank, says a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Turkey’s defiance sets up two companies to be sanctioned for violating the U.S. and EU prohibitions, the private Toprash and the public Botash. The companies will not stop buying oil and gas from Iran, according to Taner Yildiz, Turkey’s minister of energy and natural resources.

Turkey has a high dependency on Iranian as well as Russian oil. Yildiz warned that increased sanctions on Iranian oil will only jack up international prices for oil and natural gas.

Separately, U.S. policymakers are concerned that a sharp rise in oil prices will have a detrimental impact on any U.S. economic recovery.

The U.S., however, has abundant supplies of natural gas. Both the U.S. and EU sanctions allow for waivers, and already some countries – especially Greece, Italy and Spain as members of the EU – have sought those waivers due to their extreme economic conditions.

Iran doesn’t appear to be too concerned with the additional unilateral U.S. and EU sanctions, not only because a number of countries will seek waivers but because demand is growing for Iranian crude in Asia and Africa, which require oil to keep their refineries fully employed.

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